Aleister Crowley Diary Entry

Friday, 21 September 1923

Die Venus

2.40 a.m. Idea for a story about the Grotte aux Mille Amphores.

4.20 a.m. Definitions of Hadit from CCXX 11.

1. That which is hidden by Nu?

2. The complement of Nu my Bride. Not extended. Of whose House the name is Khabs.

3. In the sphere everywhere the centre.

4. Never (known).

[5.]

6. The flame that burns in every heart of man and in the core of every star. Life. The giver of life. The knowledge of whom is the knowledge of death.

7. The Magician. The Exorcist. The axle of the wheel. The cube in the circle. That goeth.

8. The object of worship of those who worshipped. The worshipper (of H.[oor] P.[aar] K.[raat]?)

4.20 a.m. (Dictated to Alostrael [Leah Hirsig]).

One of the worst dangers of cocaine & similar drugs is that they do cure, at least for the time, all ills. I began to argue from this that some slight modification of their composition should be sufficient to give us a panacea.

This argument was cut short brutally by a recollection about chess­problems—that what is called a try, that is to say, a key which looks like the correct solution & may in fact solve many variations, is not connected with the true key in any way. One cannot improve the try and obtain the key; one cannot deduce anything about the key from the nature of the try. The importance of this is to show the continuity & discontinuity of nature. The first as an illustration of the bearing of a stray property of so artificial a thing as a chess problem on a matter apparently without a single link to connect it therewith, and the second as upsetting the pseudo-mathematical dogma that the method of approximation is universally applicable. (The relation of √2 to the natural numbers is analogous.) This sprang from a meditation which culminated in a vision of myself as ALASTOR, The Spirit of Solitude. I understand my doom of lonely wandering, aching for love & denied it. ‘Yet,’ thought I, ‘my number is 6, the number of the sun and this indicates my remedy which is to draw mankind to me as a centre. This developed to my extending the meditation to include my relations with the Secret Chiefs. In order to realize this I began to invent a story. This was to form the essence of an essay which might serve as an introduction to the Hag [The Confessions of Aleister Crowley]. The scenario may be thus outlined.

The commander-in-chief of a great army has found himself obliged to retreat. Considerable disorder has ensued. In retiring he has come to the summit of a mountain. Thence he surveys the desert. A single glance tells him that the moment for counter-attack has come. One simple order to his scattered forces & the enemy will be driven back & destroyed. He looks for a messenger but every officer of his staff is wounded or otherwise useless. At this moment he catches sight of a wandering Arab. His instinct tells him that the man is absolutely loyal & sufficiently intelligent for his purpose. He calls him, writes his orders, and, in addition tells the Arab the fundamental principles of his plan which he is to convey to any soldiers he may meet pending the comprehension and disciplined execution of the written orders. The Arab goes off with the paper. He shows it to every one he meets, but they cannot read it. They receive the verbal message in various spirits, some dismiss him with mockery, some abuse him, some even strike him. A few do their best to act on the message intelligently and courageously as they can pending the arrival of detailed orders. The Arab’s difficulty is that he does not know where to look for the responsible officers who alone can understand & give effect to the written orders. In the confusion of the retreat the external signs of rank have been muddled. He eventually succeeds. He finds a man competent to assume the command & restore discipline, execute the orders of the C.I.C. to re-establish communication with him so as to be able to get new orders in case of emergency. (This last is perhaps my own fad) and leads the rallied troops to overwhelming victory.

The Arab, in the first flush of pride at being entrusted with such an all­important mission, dreams as he runs that he will be rewarded not only by the gratitude of the army he has helped to save but by being openly hailed, even before the victory as the Great deliverer. He even forgets that the fight has not yet been won & pictures himself as being received by majestic officers in glittering uniform who welcome him among themselves, load him with gold & decorations, bid him to a banquet in his honour and assign to him a permanent place in their council. He expects, in fact, to be treated as if he were the Commander-in-Chief in person or even the Sovereign himself. His early experiences arouse him from his roseate dreams. At times, he goes to the other extreme & thinks himself an outcast, despised, starved, lonely, & hopeless. Only his loyalty & pluck make him pull himself together & pursue his thankless task, exhausted to the very limit of his endurance. When at last he wins through, the commander—absorbed in the orders-so far from making a hero of the messenger, pushes him aside. However, he fights by the side of his comrades & shares their pride & enjoyment in the victory. He thinks himself lucky to find a small group of infantry who let him share their meal & the warmth of their camp fire. Not till long after does the Commander-in-Chief remember that the victory could not have been won if it had not been for the Arab. Only then does he become the hero of the army & his exploit part of the national history. They seek him out to heap him with riches & honour-the vision did not say whether the officers deputed to seek him found him long dead as a result of enthusiasm or whether, if he still lived, he was able to enjoy his reward. It might even be that his reflections on his adventure had taught him to despise all such things & to find his reward in the knowledge that he had saved his friends & in the simple love of the group of comrades among whom he had fallen; the love which had lifted forever the curse of loneliness.

5.20 a.m. [On the opposite page:] P.S. Add passage about Cynocephalus that refreshed Arab at worst period & came on with him to be the pet of the camp. I told this to 31-666-31 [Leah Hirsig] after dictation, when I cuddled her close & scratched her head.

8.0 a.m. Without imagination calculations mislead. This came from a meditation on the effect of emptying water into two holes of similar appearance so far as it is possible to observe directly but one close to sea­level & the other high up. (This had something to do with the grotto in Carthage-the hydro-statics involved.) Extending this argument, we observe that complete information as to all conditions is essential to the avoidance of gigantic blunders on the critical point. Therefore, as the Universe is infinite, error is inevitable.

The above is one case of CCXX, II, 32.

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